Chapter 6

SIX

A fter dropping off Sofia, I arrived at P.S. 058—otherwise known as Carroll Elementary—to find a covey of photographers outside the front entrance. The volunteer crossing guards were working a little harder than usual to clear the road for early arrivals. Dolores, a fifth-grade mom and head of the PTA, did not look pleased.

“Shoot,” I muttered, stopping a full block away and ducking behind a big hydrangea bush.

They hadn’t spotted me. Yet. But it was pretty obvious whom they were looking for.

“I’d take the back entrance if I were you.”

I turned to find Adam Klein standing behind me.

My stomach dropped another inch.

The last time I’d seen Adam, only days after getting into a fistfight with Xavier at a major event of the London Season, he’d appeared on the grounds of Kendal and announced that he and his mother were working with Georgina Parker to strip Xavier of his inheritance and title. His mother and Georgina were sisters, both divorced or widowed, both with sons from first husbands with distant claims to the Kendal dukedom, both with obsessive desires to wrest that title away from the half-breed upstart who, in their lofty opinions, had no rights to the title that should belong to either Frederick or Adam. According to them, the Buddhist marriage certificate produced when Xavier was nineteen (and rendering him a legitimate heir rather than the bastard he’d always been called) was a fraud, and they would stop at nothing to prove it.

All of this made the fact that Adam and I worked together exceedingly awkward, to say the least.

But at least we were back on familiar footing. He’d traded his posh clothes from the summer for the more familiar uniform of an art teacher: paint-stained overalls, horn-rimmed glasses, and the tweed driver’s cap I’d always associated with him—a scrappy look that matched my own leggings and secondhand red tunic to hide any signs of pregnancy, my long hair tossed up into its messy bun where it would be relatively safe from glitter and glue. No more comparing my borrowed clothes to his designer duds. We both looked like the teachers I’d always thought we were.

Adam glanced at the photographers, then back to me with a bit of sympathy. “Carrie said they’ve been camped out there all morning. They asked about you as soon as she got in.”

I grimaced. Our principal couldn’t have been happy to start her day this way.

“I asked John, the day custodian, to put a brick in one of the emergency exits when I got in,” Adam said. “Figured I’d catch you before you got in. Come on, I’ll show you where it is.”

I shook his hand off my elbow, but another glance at the paparazzi had me convinced. “Fine. But no funny business, all right?”

And then there was the fact that Adam had been trying diligently to steal me away from Xavier for the better part of a year. At this point, I didn’t know how or if his interest in me overlapped with his interest in the Kendal title, but I wasn’t interested in finding out.

Adam held his hands up in defeat. “Nothing at all. Just helping a friend over here.”

Friend. Right.

Begrudgingly, I allowed him to steer me around under the cover of a bunch of red and orange maple trees toward the back gate of the school, where we dashed through the playground before anyone saw us. Adam pushed the heavy fire door open and helped me inside, then shoved the brick away to let the door slam behind us.

The echo clanged around us for a solid ten seconds once we were alone in an empty corridor.

“Thanks,” I said shortly. “But to be extremely clear, I’m not your friend. Not after the crap you pulled this summer.”

Adam cocked his head, then irritatingly walked with me in the direction of my classroom. “Really? I think I deserve a little more credit. After all, we’ve known each other for years.”

“We’ve been coworkers for years,” I corrected him shortly. “Which, to be frank, I’m surprised we still are. You made your goals apparent in Kendal. Why is a hopeful heir settling for working at a Brooklyn elementary school?”

“I’m not the heir yet. And did you ever think maybe I just like it here?” He smiled as a passing kid waved at him on his way back to the morning care room from the bathrooms. “Hey, Armie. What’s up, man?” He leaned closer to me after the child had passed. “Did you ever think I just like my ‘coworkers’?”

I veered away as we rounded a corner. I had liked Adam once. Maybe even thought he was cute. But even then, something had been off, and now I wanted to put the entire island of Manhattan between us. At least.

Not a couple of classrooms.

I stopped short outside mine. “Well. Thank you for helping me inside, but I’m going to make things super clear for you. We’re not friends. Things are too complicated. We can work together and be courteous if you absolutely have to stay at Carroll, but otherwise, that’s it for us socially. I can’t really be friends with someone who is actively trying to screw over my family.”

Adam scoffed. “Xavier’s your family now? Is that why you ran off in Kendal? Why do you even care about the future of a man you left?”

“Because we share chil—a child together, and I care about her future, you pompous jerk,” I said, only too aware of how close I’d come to saying “children.”

I didn’t know what stopped me. It wasn’t like I needed to hide my condition anymore now that Xavier and my family knew. But something told me not to reveal to Adam that I was pregnant. Not yet.

He tipped his head to the side, like he was evaluating a piece of art. “Maybe that’s because you still don’t really know what kind of person he actually is.”

“Why, because I don’t share your petty high school grudges?” I snapped. “I have to get ready for class now.”

But Adam reached around me to grab the door handle and keep me from opening it, effectively pinning me against the door. “You don’t understand. You weren’t there.”

“Yeah, but look at where we work. Do you really think I don’t have the experience or wherewithal to understand schoolyard politics?” I gestured around us to the actual school we were standing in. “I get that Eton College isn’t exactly a public elementary school, but come on, Adam. Kids are kids. So Xavier was a little mean to you when you were teenagers. So what?”

“It was more than just a little mean. He made my life a living hell.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please. By all accounts, you barely knew each other.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed through his glasses, and his jaw clenched beneath the layer of well-trimmed scruff. He glanced down the hall where a few other teachers were entering their rooms. I checked my watch. We had about forty-five minutes before the rest of the kids arrived for the day, and I had prep to do.

But before I could excuse myself, Adam grabbed my elbow and shepherded me into my own classroom, then shut the door and turned to me.

“I was fourteen when I started at Eton,” he said before I could protest. “Dad got transferred to London, yeah, but it was always the plan for me to attend Eton College because of my mother’s family. That was the compromise, right? Travel with Dad, then go home to be a proper Englishman. Because at that point, I was still in the running to be the next Duke of Kendal. Mom and Georgina had been arguing about the entail for years since both Frederick and I share a common ancestor with Xavier.”

“Yes, I know about that,” I said. “But last I checked, it goes to the next oldest, doesn’t it? I don’t think your mothers being twins affects that.”

“They’re not the only twins in the Parker family,” Adam said. “Frederick and I both share a great-grandfather who was also a twin—born one minute later than the eleventh Duke of Kendal. Xavier’s great-grandfather. He might have been a jackass who was stripped of his own minor title, but he was still a legitimate Parker. So, you see, with Rupert gone, and Henry on his way, it seemed like I might have as much claim as Frederick. So I was supposed to be ready, just in case.”

I probably should have told him to leave right then, but nothing came out.

After all, I was always a sucker for a good story.

“The thing was, you can’t just become an aristocrat when you’re also an American,” Adam continued bitterly while he paced around some of the quads of student desks. “Not when you talk like we do or act like we do. You understand this now, Frankie. You know what they’re all like.”

I opened my mouth to argue but found I couldn’t. I’d known from the moment I landed in Kendal that I could never belong in that world.

Adam approached my teacher’s desk, then leaned across it and grabbed my wrist. I didn’t pull away, sensing his intensity.

“Can you imagine how hard I had to work for one grain of acceptance in that place?” he asked. “You tried for a summer. Me, it was years. I did everything I could to make the sons of dukes, prime ministers, lords and ladies, if not like me, then at least accept me a little. I had to work at everything. My manners, my speech, my clothes—it was all a struggle. Everything that came so damn easily to him .”

Xavier. He couldn’t mean anyone else.

I frowned. “That’s not true. They weren’t nice to him either. He told me. He—he was bullied too?—”

“For maybe a second,” Adam said with a snarl. “But you don’t understand—Xavier Parker never knew it, but he was everything those rich prats at Eton wanted to be. Ever heard of street credibility? They called him a bastard to his face, but deep down, every one of them wished they were as cool as the new tall kid from South London.”

By the time he was done, my jaw was practically on the floor. While I could understand how some of it might have seemed this way from Adam’s perspective, I also knew Xavier’s story—that particular period of his life had been marked by a ridiculous amount of cruelty and social alienation. Eton had never been anything but torture for him, particularly since it was well before he had been acknowledged as the heir to Kendal. I was acutely familiar with the scars those years had left. There was just no way it matched Adam’s description.

“They wanted to be like him?” I wondered. “Or was it just you?”

“It was everyone ,” Adam insisted. “He wanted a spot on the polo team? Done. Wanted to shag the hottest girls at Wycombe? All he had to do was give them one stupid, brooding stare. Everything came so fucking easy to him—and he never appreciated it!”

“I don’t get it. You hate Xavier because, what, he took your place on the polo team and girls liked him fifteen years ago?”

“I hate that prick because he has taken every fucking thing I have ever wanted!” Adam exploded. “My school, my friends, my title. And then the girl of my dreams!”

I stepped back, pulled my wrist out of his grasp, and skittered to the other side of a cluster of child-sized desks. “Adam…”

He moved like he was going to follow me but seemed to realize it would be a mistake.

“I don’t mean to pressure you,” he said carefully. “I know I’ve blown it too many times to count. But I couldn’t just let you push me away without knowing the truth. I’m in love with you, Frankie. I’ve been in love with you for years. Ever since you started at Carroll and I saw what a real, genuine, kind person you are. And it killed me that just when I got up the nerve to make a move, I found out that asshole was back in your life?—”

“Back?” I jerked against a stack of cubbies. “What do you mean ‘back’?”

Adam’s eyes popped open. “I…er?—”

“Did you know who Sofia’s father was before Xavier came back to New York?” My voice started to tremble—with rage or fear, I wasn’t sure. “Adam, did you know the whole time ?”

“I—yes.” The word expelled from his body like a blast of wind. “Yes, I knew.”

My eyes goggled. “But—what— how ?”

For once, he had nothing to say. He just stood there, one thumb hooked into a paint-splattered pocket, thin lips worrying under a short, regrown beard that he couldn’t stop tugging on.

“You’re obsessed,” I whispered. “Not with me, but with him. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You were stalking him—through me—or, or something.”

“Frankie, please,” Adam said in the same voice every adult in the building used to soothe a hysterical child. “Listen to yourself. I never stalked anyone. That sounds ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous, but you’re not denying either. You are completely obsessed with Xavier.”

“I am not obsessed with Xavier Parker.” Only a slight edge to his voice said any differently. “Curious, maybe. Who wouldn’t be curious about the guy who literally stole his inheritance, huh? Show me a single person who’s never looked up their childhood nemesis on Instagram. It’s totally normal.”

“It must have been more than that. You must have watched him for years, maybe. Followed him from afar. Watched us . Even back then—it’s the only way you could have seen us together.” My eyes popped open as icy-cold waves of awareness continued to wash over me. “And then you stalked me, didn’t you?”

I clapped a hand over my mouth. Every hair on my body was standing up straight.

“Frankie,” Adam said, hands up like a lion tamer approaching a new wild cat. “It wasn’t like that. I promise. Yes, I saw him once with you, back when I’d just moved to the city. It was an accident, I swear.” He shook his head. “You were so beautiful back then, do you know that? So brave. He never deserved you.”

“No one knew,” I whispered. “That I was pregnant. He left before I even knew. I didn’t even tell my family until I was almost six months along. Which means after he was gone…you kept following…me?” I cringed. “What was that about? Some sick Black Swan action to take over Xavier’s life? What the hell, Adam?”

His brown eyes brightened with something akin to rage, though he didn’t shout. Only because he couldn’t. Outside the door, we could both hear the increased pitter-patter of tiny feet in the hallway. At any moment, that door was going to open, and my day was going to begin. Meanwhile, I was going to have to work just a few doors down from an honest-to-God stalker.

“I am not obsessed with Xavier Parker,” Adam said again. “The only person I care about anymore is you . I’ll get you to believe me somehow, I promise. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But one day you’ll forgive me for any wrongs you think I’ve done, and I’ll have my chance again. Because you’re finished with that guy at last, right?”

I gulped. “I will never be finished with Xavier, Adam.”

For whatever reason, Xavier’s kiss tingled on my lips—meant to be an homage to the past, it still felt like a promise for the future.

How messed up was I?

Adam just smirked as he checked his watch. “Pick up and drop offs don’t make a relationship, Frankie.”

“No, but having his baby all over again does,” I retorted, then clapped my palm over my mouth as I realized my mistake.

All the good-natured ease and feigned kindness had been erased by that one small sentence, revealing a monster of an expression that was as different as Frodo from Gollum.

I might as well have threatened his “precious.”

Oh, God .

“His— what ?” he demanded.

“Get out.” My voice was a knife, subtle and low, but no less menacing. “Get away from me, get out of my classroom. If you’re smart, you’ll turn in your notice today. But in the meantime, you need to stay away from me and mine. Starting right this freaking second.”

“Ms. Zola!”

Before I could answer, we both turned to find the door opening as my first student of the day walked in. I exhaled heavily, never so glad to see an eight-year-old girl in my life.

“Ms. Zola,” said Esther Tompkins, “My mom said I couldn’t bring peanuts to school anymore because we are a nut-free classroom this year, and I just want to say, that is totally unfair! Oh, hi, Mr. Klein!”

I smiled at her, but before replying, I looked back at Adam, who had only just managed to school his features back to something presentable.

“Go,” I told Adam quietly. “Now. We have class.”

His light brown eyes bore into me so intensely, I thought I might literally see a mark on my forehead had I glanced in a mirror. “I can’t believe it. That you would?—”

“ Go ,” I interrupted.

Defeat finally slumped over his shoulders. “Fine. But Frankie, we will finish this discussion later.”

No, we will not, I thought mentally as he finally turned to leave.

But even then, I couldn’t believe myself. Even then, I knew that wouldn’t be the last thing Adam Klein had to say about Xavier Parker.

It was, however, the last thing I had to say to him that day. After receiving a couple of irritated, but mostly sympathetic comments from other teachers and the school principal, I was allowed to skip a faculty meeting and leave early when my kids went to PE.

Finding myself with an extra hour before I was due to meet Xavier at his hotel at three, I decided to go home so I didn’t have to confront him in clothes littered with marker stains. The weather was nice as I meandered down Van Brunt, even taking a half hour to check out the latest art installations at Pioneer Works.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had even thirty minutes to myself like this. Even with the help of a nanny in England, all my spare time had seemed to go toward, well, if not Xavier, then doing something to help him, whether it was researching his family or getting dressed up for some silly event.

I could buy myself flowers or coffee or whatever else I needed, as I did just that at a little bodega. I wasn’t rich, but I didn’t need to wait for a man to take care of me anymore.

Not my brother.

Not Xavier.

Not anyone.

I could demand enough of Xavier’s money to give Sofia and little no-name-on-the-way what they needed so I could prioritize my own needs for once.

In my mind, and with an extra spring in my step, I rehearsed exactly how I would inform Xavier of that until I rounded the corner toward my house. I immediately stopped short when I clapped eyes on a familiar long-legged figure seated on my little brick stoop like he’d been waiting for me for years.

Dressed in his favorite dark jeans, brightly colored sneakers, and a bright turquoise hoodie to ward against the mild fall breeze sweeping off the river, Xavier didn’t even notice as I approached.

How could he when he was deep in conversation with my mother?